Dont walk RUN to get Pro Zoom 5x camera

[windstrings]

Did'nt your mama tell you the difference between digital and optical zoom.

Optical zoom uses a series of glass or plastic lenses to bend light and apparently get you closer to your subject.

Digital zoom magnifys the existing image formed by the camera lens. Trouble is it manifies everything including the graininess.

Unless someone comes out with an actual hardware lens accessory the zoom is what it is.

I think you may have nailed the major point.. thats why just even a little extra light to help "really helps" as the camera can pick a lower iso "less grainy" shot.. otherwise a camera with that small of an orifice for light intake is what it is as its forced to bump the iso up.....
Has anyone taken some of those low light pics to see what the iso settings are?
It could also be the camera is using too low of an iso "hence the dark pics" and any pic thats zoomed up enough will look grainy.

My LG Dare does take pretty nice 3.2mp shots in low lighting.. I'll have to see if the lens is bigger or not or if we are dealing with a software issue still.

 

[windstrings]

I'm a fan. a major, major improvement from the stock software. Awesome, in fact! Thanks!

I'm running the latest Droid firmware and I assume you are too by now and I'm just not seeing it.

I admit I didn't put each pic on a large computer screen and analyze them, but I just compared with the viewer on the droid and I can't see any difference... in fact speed and clarity of focus is a tossup that I tend to give the stock camera and edge to.

Like I stated, when I took whats normally a hard shot for a phone camera.. and thats a pic of a black dog against a light background...... its hard to get the extreme contrasts to look good.. the darks of each hair strand and colors etc.... I felt the stock did better in with that pic.

Unless someone post some pictures to prove me otherwise, I don' intend on bothering with that piece of software again.

I know it sounds like I'm negative against it.. but on in the sense that it let me down and charged me for what I already had.

Sit somewhere and do a max 5X zoom and pay attention to whats in the borders.. then do the same with the stock camera " zoom to max".. the stock zooms more and looks just as good.

I don't see the point of running third party software unless there is a marked difference.

Now when you start talking about the stock messenger vs. Handcent.. then we have something to talk about!

 

[raven1911]

Anyone know if they developer is going to make the homescreen work in landscape mode without sliding out the keyboard? That was one thing I really liked in pandahome, but I seem to like home++ better overall.

 

[JhankG]

Anyone know if they developer is going to make the homescreen work in landscape mode without sliding out the keyboard? That was one thing I really liked in pandahome, but I seem to like home++ better overall.

Wrong thread.

 

[windstrings]

I didnt try the night mode... someone try that and report the difference... thats one mode I "was not" impressed with on the stock camera.

 

[MAzing87]

Interesting. I did see the 5xPro app on the market but never bothered to buy it. There seems to be a lot of mixed reviews of this app. Can anyone honestly tell me which app, Camera Magic, 5xPro, or whatever third party camera app works best to take pictures indoors or in low lighthing?

Windstrings, I like you had the LG Dare and I can agree with you 100% that the camera took excellent pictures. There was a slider to adjust the lighting, without much graininess. Great pictures. It was an excellent upgrade from the Razr (1.3mp).

I still love my droid phone, but will admit that I'm disappointed that the stock camera just doesn't deliver like the LG dare. I expected an upgrade to the camera (3.2mp to 5.0mp), with what the Dare had plus more features.

 

[windstrings]

Windstrings, I like you had the LG Dare and I can agree with you 100% that the camera took excellent pictures. There was a slider to adjust the lighting, without much graininess. Great pictures. It was an excellent upgrade from the Razr (1.3mp).

We need a camera app that gives tools for "before" the pic... not after.
We need on the fly adjust for light, iso, zoom, and contrast would be awesome!.... I think the latter we only get after the shot though.

It shouldn't be that hard.... is the hardware really that limiting?
Why do some of the other regular phones "like the LG Dare" have so many more camera tools than the Droid?.....

I do feel many of the apps are half baked and they could do much better.... especially the messaging center, music etc.

Seems they focused a lot on the cool unorthodox apps and forgot the obvious.

 

[Anomander]

Seems they focused a lot on the cool unorthodox apps and forgot the obvious.

Makes me wonder if they were just planning on letting some of the 3rd party Apps take care of the obvious ones.

 

[atomicwedgie]

I've tried a couple of these apps but as Windstrings pointed out, these are all POST processing which to me means they're letting the standard camera software handle taking the pics and then they're just trying to tweak it afterwards. Sometimes this results in worse pictures.

 

[jthompsn]

I still love my droid phone, but will admit that I'm disappointed that the stock camera just doesn't deliver like the LG dare. I expected an upgrade to the camera (3.2mp to 5.0mp), with what the Dare had plus more features.

+1 The camera on the dare was great! I am totally disappointed with the droid camera. Mine takes crappy pics at best. What gives?

 

[GadgetRick]

Been taking pics with Camera Magic all weekend. I really like it except for the fact it doesn't allow you to see what you're zooming in on when you zoom. Kind of makes the feature useless.

Might have to check out the other app...

 

[rocketman45]

Pro Zoom is a very good camera app with many more features than stock. Zoom works great and you can see what your zooming in on. Seems odd that you can't with Camera Magic which I haven't seen. At least in my case, picture quality with Pro Zoom is excellent. For all the features and functions you get you cannot get a better value for only two bucks. Furthermore, the developer is extremely responsive. I've emailed him questions twice now and both times received very clear answers within only a couple of hours. I highly recommend Pro Zoom. Also, filters, white balance adjustments, and scenes are applied before the photo is taken.

 

[rocketman45]

After further experimentation with interior pictures I have to admit they are a bit grainy. My outside shots were quite sharp. I plan to try various combinations of scene and wb adjustments to see if this improves.

 

[Anomander]

I got an outside shot today using both the Pro Zoom 5X and the stock App. I didn't get a chance to change the settings since I was running late for an appointment, but the view for Mt. Hood was pretty cool looking this morning.
First Image (1260809317792) is taken with Pro Zoom with 736x560 resolution and Large on the Jpeg quality rating.

Second Image (2009-12-14-) was taken with Stock App. PIcture size is 5M and pictuare quality is Super Fine.

Max Zoom on both images. What surprises me is that both resolutions seem to small for the settings. I could have sworn I had Pro Zoom 5x set for 2048x1536. It is now set for Maximum Possible. Makes me wonder how much better these shots would have turned out if I had time to make sure settings were correct. Only had time to start each program and take the shot since I was running late for an appointment. Sorry guys for the comparison shots with the low settings.

EDIT: Really wished I would have had my Nikon D80 with me with that view.

 

[MAzing87]

Recently, I have tried the Camera Zoom and was not impressed. I have also tried out the Camera Magic, and FX Camera app. I guess I'll try 5x Pro Zoom.